THE VERDICT ON CREATIONISM

Published: August 23, 1987

Contrary to Professor Gould's prediction, creationists have a fourth strategy that they are already using with success. This is the strategy concerning the ''right of the Christian child'' not to hear in public school lessons that would conflict with the family's religious beliefs. This ploy, sadly, has already been supported in several Southern courts, and raised its head in California's science textbook adoption process last year.

The response to this strategy must be that education does not compel the student to believe, but only to understand; indoctrination is not the purpose. KEVIN PADIAN Associate Professor of Paleontology University of California Berkeley, Calif.